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NASA safety experts opposed latest ISS mission

NASA’s latest mission to the International Space Station (ISS) was approved despite experts’ concerns about the “the continued degradation” of equipment at the orbital outpost.

Particular concerns were raised over the state of environmental monitoring sensors, exercise equipment and medical systems at the ISS.

The revelation comes just eight weeks after the Columbia Accident Investigation Board criticised NASA’s closed “safety culture” for contributing to the Columbia shuttle accident in its final report.

Minutes of a meeting held at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on 10 September, obtained by the The Washington Post, reveal that two NASA medical experts refused to sign flight certificates authorising the current mission to the ISS.

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Despite this objection a three-man crew blasted off for the ISS from Kazakhstan aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on Saturday.

Nitza Cintron, NASA’s chief of space medicine and William Langdoc, chief of the Habitability and Environmental Factors Office at NASA, stated that “the continued degradation” of equipment, along with a mission that might last longer than six months on limited supplies “all combine to increase the risk to the crew to the point where initiation of [the mission] is not recommended”.

Out of control

Cintron and Langdoc were especially concerned that sensors used to monitor the space station’s air supply for dangerous trace elements is currently broken.

There is believed to be tension within NASA between safety experts who fear the ISS is becoming dangerously dilapidated and astronauts and managers who do not want to leave the outpost unmanned for fear it could become vulnerable to an accident that would make it spiral out of control.

Ten other officials present at the September meeting signed off the mission, including more senior NASA officials. One of the three-man crew will return with the current crew of the ISS while the other two will stay at the station for 200 days.

Lights off

NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe said he believed the officials who originally objected were now satisfied with plans to repair equipment aboard the ISS and added that crew safety remains a priority.

“If there is any indication whatsoever that this [situation] is hazardous to their continued existence, or to their health longer term, the answer is&colon; Get aboard the Soyuz, turn down the lights and leave,” he said.

Sensors at the space station that monitor air and water quality and radiation levels have been broken for a number of months. Other systems that monitor the crew’s vital signs have also been producing irregular data.

The Columbia accident has left NASA’s entire shuttle fleet grounded since February – cutting off the main supply line to the ISS. Construction has been placed on hold and the station crew reduced from at least three to just two.